Fish Bowls

Crisanta resided in an apartment full of shit. Cockroaches scurried across the kitchen counters when the sun no longer illuminated the room, the toilet took two attempts to flush its contents completely, and the garbage disposal always backed up, releasing a putrid aroma of last night’s left-overs. She slept, ate, and studied in her bedroom. Her bed doubled as a desk as well as a place to restore her energy each night. Her closet looked as if it might spew out its matter at any moment if the door slid open all the way. A collection of vintage t-shirts, embroidered sweaters, sun dresses, leggings, knitted scarves, and skinny jeans that she scavenged for in trendy thrift stores the past four years, and so forth defined her, lined the metal bar. Piles of music and glamour magazines from past year’s subscriptions, boxes of papers, texts, and course readers from her classes from previous semesters, a vast compilation of scuffed Chuck Taylors, flats that scrunched her toes inward, and shoe-lace-less slip-on sneakers, were strewn in any free space they could fit. Cozy, to say the least. After several attempts of living with other people, she realized she needed her own space, even if this modest dwelling was all she could afford.
Living alone on the 23rd floor of a 26 high rise apartment presented her with many opportunities. When the girl directly above her belted out Spice Girl songs at the top of her lungs or worked out to Tae Bo instructional video tapes, Crisanta knew it. When the inhabitants to her right squabbled for the third time that day only to make their bed play knock knock jokes with the wall five minutes later, she knew it. And when machine guns sputtered surround sound shots, making her second guess if her apartment building was being attacked or if it was just her neighbor to the left participating in the virtual world of video games, she knew it as well.
Not everything about her living space was a nuisance. She absolutely loved the view from her bedroom window. Past the grimy, smudged glass and mesh screen, a community of other charming apartment complexes encircled her. A maze of charcoal asphalt crowded with vehicles and cerulean rectangles that mirrored the atmosphere above and structures beside cut each corner of every apartment. Sun bathers came and went until their skin turned an appetizing shade of mocha. Children splashed their mothers and amused themselves with their underwater world of imagination. Cars and mopeds zoomed by, reverberating up through her open partition with the breeze. In each skyscraper that surrounded her, there were identical ceiling to floor windows and balconies stacked neatly on top of one another. Through each one was a looking glass, a fish bowl into the lives of the inhabitants around her. The view made everything in her shitty apartment worth it. The whole world outside her window carried on with their business, and she got to watch it all unfold.
At times, she did feel creepy and stocker-like but she didn’t see any harm in it. People left their curtains and windows open for a reason. Yes, partially for some fresh air and to not feel so claustrophobic in their little square rooms, but they wanted to be seen. They wanted people to watch their life’s play out.
Whenever she got home from work, whenever she wanted to avoid doing her homework, whenever there was nothing on the television, she would expose her own room and simply watch. She didn’t need reality TV, she had her own with more than 35 channels right outside her window, all the characters life-size. To switch the channel, all she had to do was adjust her eyes. Night was the prime time for people watching. The lights contrasted with the dim abyss, forming spotlights into each fish bowl, highlighting what once were silhouettes. Most people sat and watched their own televisions the majority of the time, but everyone had something interesting to offer. She believed she had come to know the one’s she analyzed.
On the 17th floor across the way, there was the man that only sported boxers. Crisanta called him “eye candy” because his sculpted body was quite pleasant to look at. He flaunted it and knew he was hot. Sometimes different girls would appear on his couch, but most of the time he flexed his muscles on his Bo-Flex pro system, ran on his treadmill, or was deep in concentration on his computer. She knew if he passed her on the street, she wouldn’t get a second glance. She would never date this kind of guy or probably never be his friend, but he was purely pretty to look at.
A few floors down, there was the girl who grew plants on her balcony and tended to them everyday around 8 in the morning. It was a hyrdoponic kind of garden. Every weekend, her friends would come over and help her harvest the plants. Afterwards, they’d light up and inhale. Sometimes the fragrance wafted across the way into Crisanta’s nasal passage and reminded her of the days she did the same, with friends who were far gone. Times when they would think up brilliant inventions and have intricate conversations about nothing, only to forget the next day. When her mind would take over and make her suspect that everyone was out to get her, She missed it and she didn’t.
On a floor directly across from her, a decrepit man always sat in his camping chair on his balcony. Breathing slowly with his white undershirt rising and falling, excess skin and fat bulged over his knickers. Crisanta concluded that he wasn’t able to leave his apartment; his son brought him dinner everyday and kept him company if he was lucky. He too, like Crisanta examined the creatures that roamed each rented space. Aware of his loneliness and confinement through his boredom, she would try to give him a smile if he was looking her way. He reminded her that growing old was not going to be a heyday, she really wasn’t looking forward to being miserable and jaded.
Then, on the top floor, there was a plump boy around the age of 8. He gazed over the rail of his balcony everyday. He was on top of the world, had the best bird’s eye view for miles, and always had anticipation in his eyes. He would lean over the barrier that separated him from a 28 floor drop, and rest his chin on his folded arms, always staring off into the distance. Crisanta knew he was a day dreamer, probably, much like her. He probably wanted to escape, but he still had a few more years of simplicity before he realized how cruel and unfair the world could really be. Crisanta envied him.
The list went on, and each day she observed she tried to learn something new about someone else across the way. Those who let her in, she gladly accepted the invitation. This made Crisanta content. She realized that she wasn’t the only one with problems, worries, and difficulties. She was done worrying about her own, and would rather take the time to learn about someone else’s. It kept her human. After wasting so much time worrying about things that didn't require all the worrying in the first place, she liked focusing her energy into observing those around her. Although the people she examined didn’t know her, and majority of the time didn’t know she was watching, she felt connected to them with the similarities she found they shared. She truly wasn’t alone; she was more surrounded by people than ever. This was her learning channel, and she wondered who was gazing into her little fish bowl.